


Paths

by LuvEwan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Master and Padawan, QuiObi Secret Santa, protective Qui-Gon, vague mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuvEwan/pseuds/LuvEwan
Summary: Qui-Gon and Tahl rescue Obi-Wan after a failed memory wipe. On the ship back to Coruscant, some truths are avoided while others are explored.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi & Tahl, Qui-Gon Jinn & Tahl (Star Wars)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91
Collections: QuiObi Secret Santa 2020





	Paths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outpastthemoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/gifts).



“There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?”  
― Mary Oliver

—

Tahl is chewing her fingernails when she thinks Qui-Gon isn’t looking, or maybe she doesn’t care if he looks. Her fingers are slender and brown and graceful; her skin glows gold when it catches the light from the fluorescent overhead panels. 

It is the middle of the night, except there is no night in deep space, no circadian rhythm with which the body can set its pace. Food rations remain untouched on the tray beside the bed. Tahl’s task has been tea, and she disappears every few hours to brew more of the plain blend scrounged up from the kitchen. 

Obi-Wan wants caff, but Qui-Gon does not allow it. The tea is bad enough, its natural stimulants making his Padawan’s pulse too quick beneath Qui-Gon’s occasional testing touch. Obi-Wan walks around the cramped space of the room they’re all sharing, shaking his hands as if they’re wet and he’s trying to hastily dry them. He makes quiet, wordless noises in the back of his throat. 

“Sit down, young one,” Tahl implores again, softly. She pats the bed, where she sits with her dark robe wrapped around her. “For a few minutes? You must be exhausted.”

The concern in her voice rustles the worry Qui-Gon has been working to keep still within himself. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, near Obi-Wan. His knees and the pads of his feet burn. He knows he should take control of this situation--override his Padawan’s objections to the painkillers and put him to bed. Except he can’t do that to Obi-Wan, who is a senior apprentice and, more importantly, has spent long days without any agency at all. 

Qui-Gon cannot be responsible for making Obi-Wan feel powerless, even if he is miserable. Though they have not discussed it, except for a few weighted glances, Qui-Gon knows Tahl feels the same way, and so she brings Obi-Wan the tea when he asks, and talks to him as he travels those unpredictable paths across the room. 

“There is other food, I’m sure, in the kitchen. I don’t like the rations either. What if I cooked you something?”

Obi-Wan pauses, runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “I…”

Qui-Gon senses the conflict in him. Obi-Wan is unerringly polite, but the damage done to his body--to his mind--has left him ragged at his edges. 

“I-I can’t,” he tells Tahl. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset anyone--”

Compassion wells in Tahl’s gold-green eyes, and she blinks the moisture away quickly, offering Obi-Wan a smile. “That’s alright, young one. No one is upset with you.”

Qui-Gon swallows a sudden thickness in his throat at the words. _Of course we aren’t upset with you_ , he wants to say, grab hold of Obi-Wan’s arms and pull him close, protect him as he had not protected him before, when it mattered. _Never never never_. 

He closes his eyes, immediately sees Obi-Wan as he had been in that pitiful cell, hunched over and retching in a corner. His Jedi uniform had been torn, stained with dirt and dried, rusty blood. Would he ever forget the way Obi-Wan cowered when the cell door burst open, too delirious to understand it was his Master and Tahl who had come for him? 

Qui-Gon shifts to the present, watches the fidgety movements of his Padawan. There are still too many gaps, whole lines blotted out from the narrative of Obi-Wan’s captivity. Obi-Wan has only sparingly explained the attempted memory wipe and Qui-Gon is sure the worst things have been omitted, to shield his Master from pain. 

_Oh Padawan. It is more painful not to know_ , he thinks. He is a seasoned Jedi, after all, and can fill in those gaps with all the cruelty he has seen in the universe. The not-knowing is a sour taste at the back of his throat and cannot be washed away, not with the tea. 

What he does know is that Obi-Wan was taken, tortured fruitlessly for information, and then sold off to a third party. From what Obi-Wan would tell Qui-Gon and the authorities, his captors wanted classified details from a mission completed nearly a year ago. Neither Obi-Wan nor Qui-Gon participated in the mission, but some cultures believed that the Jedi shared a _hive mind_ ; what one Jedi knew, the rest would instinctively know, with the Force as a constant conduit between them all. 

Qui-Gon guesses that the memory erasure was meant to remove Obi-Wan as a witness to his own torture, while also creating a lucrative, malleable Jedi-trained slave for the underground operation who purchased him. 

It has been a weeks-long ordeal for his Padawan, only on his third solo assignment when he was abducted. Qui-Gon had felt nothing, not the slightest twinge of anxiety about Obi-Wan leaving for _____. Ironic, given that he would spend long days feeling like his veins were tied up, his wrists too tight, an invisible pair of hands slowly closing around his neck. How much better would it be, he muses now, if the Jedi really could hear each other’s thoughts. He could have just asked Obi-Wan 

_Where are you please where are you_

and the answer would have been delivered directly to his waiting synapses. But, like so much else, that particular impression of the Jedi was a fantasy. With the distance between them, he could not sense anything from Obi-Wan, save a small flicker in the Force, like a far off star in an overfull sky. 

Tahl had insisted on aiding in the search efforts.  
Qui-Gon is not sure how he would have fared without her constant, steady presence. 

She is standing up from the bed now, moving gently to Obi-Wan’s side and placing a hand on his shoulder. “They lied to you, young one.” 

Obi-Wan reaches for her hand. It is a desperate, clumsy grip. “But h-how can I know? What if…”  
He trails off, in exhaustion or dread. 

Both. 

Tahl looks up at Qui-Gon beseechingly. 

He wets his lips and walks over to them. He rubs circles on Obi-Wan’s back while he speaks. “Obi-Wan, we spoke to the Temple healers. They concur with the doctors who treated you—there is no danger in sleeping. Master Tahl is right. You were fed a cruel lie.”

It had not been enough for them to torture and restrain him—he was taunted too, told that when he fell asleep following the wipe, he would lose his memories, the sum of his entire life, for good. 

Obi-Wan fought off the intended effects of the procedure, yet somehow that teasing warning remained rooted in his head. He has not slept at all, refusing sedation and painkillers, not trusting himself to so much as sit on the bed. 

Qui-Gon runs his hand across the tense curve of Obi-Wan’s back. He had at least permitted the healers to care for his wounds, and he still smells faintly of bacta and bland hospital soap. His weary body relives the sensations of the wipe again and again, as if he has grasped on to every memory rather than let anything go. Qui-Gon feels Obi-Wan’s constant headache radiate in his own skull, in the cores of each of his teeth. 

Qui-Gon sighs, cupping the back of Obi-Wan’s head. He smoothes the nerf tail with his thumb. It is a habit between them, a wordless form of comfort. 

Some Masters might take umbrage, remind Qui-Gon of the Code’s stance on attachments, but it is Tahl here with them, and she only smiles tenderly. 

“I think I saw some soup packets,” she says to Qui-Gon, “I could make him a bowl. Perhaps the warmth would—“

“I can’t.” Obi-Wan whispers. He sounds simultaneously defeated and resolute, and lays his forehead against Qui-Gon’s shoulder. 

Qui-Gon keeps rubbing patterns into his back and stroking his hair. He nods to Tahl. 

—

He listens to the faint noises of Tahl in the kitchen, hears a muttered curse and can’t help smiling to himself, thankful for the brief levity. On this lackluster ship, the tea has been a miracle. If she coaxes something edible from the dehydrated soup packets, Qui-Gon will have no choice but to worship her. 

Obi-Wan is halfway slumped onto him, but still standing. 

Qui-Gon wants to try maneuvering him to the bed; that will be a delicate, gradual negotiation. For now it seems a safer choice to lean them both against the wall. 

“I’m sorry, Master,” Obi-Wan’s voice is muffled by the neckline of Qui-Gon’s tunic. 

“There is nothing to be sorry about.” Qui-Gon has never been able to drill this tendency out of him, this need to take on guilt that doesn’t belong to him. “You have been through an ordeal, Padawan. Somehow you were able to hold onto yourself through it all.” He brushed his lips against Obi-Wan’s temple. “I am very proud of you.”

Obi-Wan seems to vibrate beneath his skin. He likely wants to begin pacing again, except his physical strength is draining away, finally. 

“No more tea,” Qui-Gon decides. “Just...speak to me. Would you tell me more of what happened?” 

The slender body stiffens against him. 

He combs his fingernails softly up and down Obi-Wan’s back

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 still to come. I’m neither concise nor good with deadlines. Also I love writing specifically for outpastthemoat—such a fiercely talented writer, a wonderful friend and an all around lovely human being.


End file.
